President-elect Donald Trump has attacked ABC News' David Muir, recalling his claim during September's ABC presidential debate that “violent crime is going down.”
At a pre-inauguration rally on Sunday, President Trump acknowledged the “hundreds, even thousands” of victims of immigrant crime and said crime is on the rise even without illegal immigrants.
Trump then recalled how Muir fact-checked him during a presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in September.
“Remember when I did the debate and I had David Muir from the ABC say, “No, crime hasn't gone down at all'' and I said, “No, we've gone through the roof.'' ” he said. David's crimes went through the roof. [said] No, crime has not decreased. He said it went through the roof. And he said, “Oh, I don't agree with that.” The next day they announced that crime had increased by about 40%. This guy…everything is so bad,” Trump said.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump arrives to attend a rally the day before his second inauguration in Washington, U.S., on January 19, 2025. (Reuters/Carlos Barria)
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Muir, who was co-hosting with Lindsey Davis at the time, argued that President Trump's claim during the debate that crime was “through the roof” was inaccurate.
“President Trump, as you know, the FBI says there is an overall decline in violent crime in this country,” Muir said.
“The FBI — they lied about their statements. They didn't include the worst cities. They didn't include the cities where the worst crimes happened. This was a fraud. They said they created 818,000 jobs turned out to be a fraud,'' Trump responded.
ABC Presidential Debate co-hosts David Muir and Lindsey Davis were criticized for refusing to correct Vice President Kamala Harris despite constantly fact-checking former President Trump. It was heavily criticized. (ABC News)
Although ABC News did not announce that a crime had occurred “the next day,” the FBI's revision a month later in October appeared to vindicate President Trump's original comments. Although it initially reported that violent crimes in 2022 decreased by 2.1%, the FBI later acknowledged that the total number of violent crimes in 2022 increased by approximately 80,029 compared to 2021, an increase of 4.5%.
Muir did not acknowledge the changes on his “World News Tonight” show after the revised version was released.
Fox News Digital has reached out to ABC News for comment.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Muir for fact-checking while ignoring Harris during the debate.
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“And during the debate, I mentioned that and David Muir, who is a true lightweight,” Trump said in September. “It was 3-1, but I think we did well. But when David Muir from the ABC said, “It's fake news, there's been a huge increase in crime in our country,'' he corrected me and corrected me. And you were right,” I said, and he didn’t correct me. [Vice President Kamala Harris] One time, what she said was wrong, absolutely wrong. There are so many differences — Charlottesville, she was wrong, different things, almost everything she said, and she was never corrected.
President Trump has frequently attacked Muir after the FBI's revised report revealed an increase in violent crimes. (Heidi Gutman/ABC via Getty Images, Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“But he corrected me about crime. He said, 'No, no, crime isn't going up.'” I said crime was up significantly, and he said, “Let me just say for the record. But crime hasn't increased,” Trump said.
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